In simple terms, most search engines use 'spiders', 'robots', 'web crawlers' (there's a whole host of different terms) that trawl the Internet, indexing sites into a huge database, which when interrogated by the user, acts like a directory.

Search engines index websites by using the text on each page, as well as the metatags and keywords that should be tagged to your website. The text content of your site should contain relevant keywords in context. Search engines are continuously being optimised to actually search the contents of the web and this should be your starting point. The other side of this are the metatags which allow a summary and description of each page. These appear in the source of your web pages, i.e. 'behind the scenes' and are not visible to the user, and your web designer should implement these on your behalf. In some cases, indexing by search engines can take up to 8 months!

There are many metatags that can be incorporated behind your web pages, but careful consideration should be given to 3 main areas:

1. Keywords - your high priority keywords and phrases should appear within the body of the text on your web pages - the earlier the better.

2. Description - this again should include your high priority key words / phrases.

3. Title - though not strictly a metatag, this is an important area to include your keywords.

NOTE: You would conduct this exercise for your home page and you may wish to repeat it for each page, particularly if any of your products or services can be standalone.
WARNING: When carrying out this exercise, don't overload your keyword list with too many repeated words, don't use irrelevant words and don't use 'invisible' text on your web pages. These practices are considered a breach of web etiquette and you may well get caught by the search engines and therefore eliminated from their ranking system for good.

Reciprocal Links
If you are able, use reciprocal links where possible, for example, some of our customers feature a link on their website 'created by mc2websites'. This is reciprocated with a link on our portfolio section. That helps with ranking success. Remember, if your customers appreciate your service then you may well get mentioned by them on the web. Search engines look through all the links on sites they index and can use this to rank your site.
WARNING: Beware of services which simply add your site to a list of links in order to boost your ranking. Unlike the more complex listings of online directories like the Open Directory Project, the search engines at best ignore these sites, at worst they will blacklist or mark your site down. This can cause serious harm to your position in the search results.

Avoid Frames
Avoid the use of frames in the design of your website. Sites using frames can offer many advantages to the user, but if you are operating in a market where search engine ranking is crucial, then you should have a no-frames site. Some search engines can handle them but most don't like at all. If you'd like visitors to bookmark your site, i.e. add it to their Favourites list, you should also avoid frames. A well designed layout should be able to offer the site design required without using frames anyway.

Country Specific Domains
If you are operating on a national basis, rather than international, our advice would be to choose one of the '.uk' domain name extensions like '.co.uk' as opposed to a '.com'. The reason for this is that '.com' names will generally not register with UK specific search engines and for example with the 'pages from the UK' option on Google UK.

Updates
Keep your site regularly updated. This is good practice anyway, not least from the point of view of your image to customers and repeat visitors, but also because spiders, robots, web crawlers can detect changes to your site and will index your site again and again.

How Often to Submit?
There's a saying 'if it ain't broke, don't fix it' - if you're achieving good search engine ranking, there's no need to resubmit. However, if you do want to keep on top of it, then quarterly submission is reasonable.
It's also advisable to re-submit after you undertake any major changes to your site or if you feel that your ranking is slipping.

How Do You Do It?
- You visit the major search engines; Google, Yahoo, Altavista, MSNSearch, Mirago and UKplus; and manually submit your site. This is fairly labour intensive, but could yield dividends, as probably 80-90% of your website traffic could come from the Top Ten search engines.
- There are websites available that will submit you to the Top Ten search engines free of charge.
- Alternatively you can ask your web designer to help you with this. It may be included in the cost of your web project, or a nominal fee may be charged to cover labour and administration.